“Louisa, you said you picked up that letter in the street. Was that statement true?”
“Of course it was.” She answered him with indignant asperity. “May I inquire if you suspect me of telling a lie?”
“Louisa, do you know how the letter came to be in the street before you picked it up?”
“Of course I do. I dropped it there myself.” Mr Wiseman groaned heavily in body and turned his face to the wall. He now realised for the first time that there is a feminine code of ethics which is radically different in some important respects from the masculine, and he recognised the hopelessness of further discussion...
Next day the triple wedding was duly solemnised by the Reverend Josiah, and the three couples departed in their several wagons for their respective homes. There is good ground for believing that as marriages go, these unions resulted in a highly satisfactory average of happiness.
The Prince and Princess, of course, sailed down the flowing stream of their days in a shallop with a fortunate keel, drawn by a sail which was ever arched to the balmy breath of happy gales. Mr Winterton and Matilda lived for a satisfactory number of years, and were continually discovering new and admirable qualities in each other. Their many good works are still bearing fruit in the little village in which they dwelt; and the gorgeous hues of the smoking-caps and slippers with which the industrious and devoted Matilda used to clothe the upper and nether extremities of her spouse are still vivid in the memories of the older inhabitants.
It is only doing Mr Bloxam justice to say that he came out of his painful ordeal like a gentleman. From the ruins of the fabric of anticipated bliss, in which he had fondly dreamt of dwelling by the side of the beauteous Stella, he built what proved to be a durable tenement of unpretentious design, in which he and Lavinia lived for many days in sober comfort. His sufferings at first were extremely bitter, and it is high praise of his manliness to say that he concealed their existence from his wife. Had he but known it, his life with Lavinia was far more satisfactory than it could possibly have been with Stella. It has been said that Mrs Bloxam found her husband’s temper very trying during the first few years of their married life, but that things mended in this respect as time went on, and that the esteem which these two learned to feel for each other made the autumn of their united life like unto a calm, rich-skied Indian summer.